The Beast You've Made of Me
by tore-my-yellow-dress
Summary: She wishes someone had told her that she'd have no choice but to love him, and he wishes it were so simple. Or that one fic where Lizzie is an Omega, Red is an Alpha, and Red's presence makes Lizzie have her first heat. Lizzington. A/B/O dynamics. Follow-up to "Be Careful of the Curse."


/

_**A/N- You are not ready. You asked for this, but you are not ready. If you have no idea as to what A/B/O dynamics are, go read up on those, or brace yourself for some kinky mama jama. This is the follow-up piece to, "Be Careful of the Curse". I disclaim these characters. Feedback is much appreciated! Reviews are to Yellow Dress as warm hugs are to Olaf. **_

_**And on with the fic. **_

_**/**_

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She wishes someone had told her, _you were born hurting, but one day you will meet a man that makes the sea look like a raindrop. And though he smells of salt and the goodnight kisses you were never given, tucked into the matchbox bed in the home burned among the forest — _

_His hands are not clean. _

_But your hands are not clean either, little Lizzie. Go wash up for supper. _

She wishes someone had told her, _your north star will be a man, and you will love him even if it kills you. _

_/_

Red's got his sleeves rolled up mid-arm, knelt down as he dips his fingers into the steaming heat that rises up from the water that jets, thick and pouring, out of the faucet. The claw-foot is pristine, looks barely used. Lizzie leans back against the counter, the marble digging into her lower back, and imagines Red spending a Saturday night reading Hemingway with a cigar hanging from between his teeth. The bubbles up around his chest. Jazz on the bass.

Stars in her eyes, maybe, from the way she shakes her head at her own train of thoughts, the throb in her skull working in tandem with the beat of water pressure against porcelain. Disarmingly curt, Red clears his throat, fusses with another bottle, and stands. He turns around, and Lizzie braces herself.

She can't help it. Honest.

It's just that Lizzie is an Omega, even if she's never been much of one. She's an Omega, and right now, Red is an Alpha, and he turns to her with his shoulders strung and his jaw set, and even if his eyes are soft, he doesn't mean fun and games when he beckons, firmly, "Take off your clothes."

Lizzie dips her chin, cheeks flaming. "I don't see why this is necessary. Couldn't we just—

"What?" he takes a looming step forward, moves right up until his chest is only inches away from her body, and Lizzie feels trapped like this, caught. The way slick openly drips, crude, down her thighs, belies any discomfort. Even her question is indirectly convoluted, as Red proves to her in a wayward lilt. "You think we should just get it over with, is that it? Just fuck?"

She's never heard a swear bark from his mouth so harshly, and finds the sentiment is rough and leaning against her skin. Lizzie shrugs her shoulders, and the Omega knows, somehow, somehow it knows, and it tells her to keep her head down. _Submit, _it whispers in her ear. _Submit. _

"Lizzie, look at me."

She swallows.

Does as she's told.

Red's eyes are flinty and emerald, his mouth quirked in something too twisted to be humor. "I don't know who gave you the idea that bathing is more intimate being screwed, but I promise that misconception will be rectified tonight."

Liz struggles to even her breathing

"Now," he continues, reaching a steady hand up, up, and it's so lucky that she doesn't flinch when he tucks a hanging wisp of hair behind her ear. "May I see you?" he asks of her, and this time she knows it's a question.

It's a harrowing certainty to know that despite the drive in his chest that is undeniably Alpha, despite the way his scent calls to her to sink to her knees and please, this, him asking instead of just taking, is a sure sign that despite biology and silly simple things, this is still Raymond Reddington. And Raymond Reddington would never do her intentional harm. Never.

So it must be want, not instinct, that encourages her small, meek nod. Lizzie reaches for her blouse, but he stops her with his own warm, large hands. Looks at her directly, and even now, even as they're just standing there, the water still giving off wafts of mist, mirrors all fogged up, Lizzie's stomach convulses like a knife to the gut, wet running down her leg, such shame. He must be able to smell it, smell how much she needs. He knows.

He's still treating her like a queen despite it all.

"Let me," he whispers, his breath bursting against her cheek, and shifts to pop open a button.

Red makes quick work, and even though she's not cold, Lizzie shivers when the air hits her bare back. He shunts the top off her pointedly, fingers etching maps over the soft skin of her arms, holding, caressing. It's not nearly as sexual when he touches the skin of her shoulders, lower back, stomach, wrists, but then Liz realizes that he's intentionally taking inventory.

Taking inventory of what is _his. _She is _his _Omega, and that mere thought has Lizzie swaying, moaning as she resists the urge to slide her thigh around side one of his and do something tawdry like dry-hump him. Jesus Christ, what's the matter with her? She arches her back into his chest, nipples straining against lace, and her breathing stutters when he draws circles around the space between her shoulder blades. With a quick c_lick, _he unclasps her bra and tugs it off without a fray of bravado.

Eyes her pert, rosy buds. All hunger, but all satisfy. So much heat, and Lizzie needs, oh God, she—

Downstairs, the doorbell sounds.

Red takes a step back, gaze sharpening from the blurred haze he's been immersed in. His Adam's apple bobs, and Lizzie wants to move, to catch up with how he's not near anymore, but—

"That's probably food," he mutters. Turns.

Stops, just as he gets to the door. "Lizzie, please rid yourself of the rest of your clothing by the time I return."

When the bathroom door clicks shut, Lizzie collapses uselessly, slides down to the floor with her back against the counter.

She heaves.

/

With hands that quake like shattered things, she manages to slide her clothes off with uncontrollable whimpers trembling out her lips, and she's trying to be rational about this, but the pain in her stomach has worsened to agony, to nails down a hunter chalkboard, and even if it's only for a moment and she knows he'll be back Red still _left, he left, he's gone, _and there's something wrong with her. There's something so wrong with her.

/

It's only a few minutes later when Red returns, but when he finds her, stark naked, ripping at the seams, he rushes to her side in a blur of clothing, down on _his _knees before her. He takes her in, and Lizzie finds his face, his holy mouth with those eyes, him, him, that mouthwatering Goddamn scent— and needs, her hands reaching for him subconsciously before she stops herself, realizes exactly what she's doing, what she's done, and the state she's in, and drops her limbs, awkward again. The Alpha won't have any of that.

Red reaches for her with conviction, gathers her up, naked as she is, in his arms.

Regardless of how wanton her ebb had been for him to touch her flesh, touch the throb between her legs, suddenly that is pushed to the wayside. Skin is just skin in comparison to how she wants him to hold her, surround her.

Drown her.

"You're alright," he croons. "Lizzie, you're alright."

"No," she gasps, tears rushing down her flushed cheeks. Even as she says this, the agonizing pulse in her stomach wanes as his heady scent fills her nostrils. Relief. "No, Red, I'm sick. This is so sick. It hurts. I need you so much it _hurts." _

The expression on his face is one of vivid sorrow as he listens, strokes the waterfall of her hair tickling her shoulders, and in one swift motion, buries his mouth at her pulse.

She never in a million years expects him to do this.

Lizzie keens as he sucks her neck, and no, they have yet to even _kiss_, but something about his teeth grazing her skin aids the craze, helps, and Lizzie inhales sharply as the moisture between her thighs rubs against his pants, coats him. That makes her feel better, in a strange fashion: that she's scenting him, too. That by the end of tonight, he will be her Alpha as much as she his Omega. Samar said every soul at the water cooler thought they'd pair-bond, thought it was inevitable.

Red suckles on the tender, breakable skin of her carotid, and Lizzie realizes inevitable has never tasted so sweet.

And then Red— the Alpha, her Alpha— says softly, against her neck, "There's nothing wrong with you, and I'm sorry I left you alone, even for a moment. It wasn't meant to punish you, even though I know it felt like it. I know that, Lizzie, and I swear to you that I will never leave you again."

Somehow, by fractures of light sparkling like diamond in the disgusting tragedy around them, Lizzie knows, something within her knows, that Red they aren't merely speaking of bodies and matter.

/

Lizzie's nails dig red hot scuffs into his arms as he hoists her up with a great gust of air, hears, far away, the crackle of his knees. Red's not an old man, but even she can pinpoint the graying hairs upon his receding hairline, the wrinkles that go soft around his eyes. It defies nature to have met a match as great with such an age difference, but this is true, and Lizzie knows deep in the charred confines of her soul that he is her match, he is her part to a whole.

The water is a shock to her skin; assuredly warm.

Red helps her situate into the bathtub with gentle, manipulating limbs. But in spite of the care taking, Red is still a man, and even if skin is skin, they are still prisoners in their flesh. As he pulls away, settling onto his knees beside the tub, Lizzie watches him give her a distinct, clarifying look, his eyes lingering over her breasts, her stomach, and the wiry, kept hair between her legs.

Her first vain thought of the evening:

Lizzie wishes she'd had the opportunity to shave bare before presenting to the Alpha, but then—

As if sensing her thoughts, Red releases a long, pleased purr.

It resonates across the surface of the atmosphere. It resonates.

With an incline of his head, and an assuring upturn of his lips, Red reaches for a washcloth.

/

Thick, dexterous fingers lace across her scalp. Pull this way and that. Lizzie struggles not to writhe, water splashing up around her breasts as she wilts, the fruity scent of a fine hotel she's never been to regarding finest travel-sized complementary shampoo and conditioner. The brand is foreign, words on the little bottle in French. She's been compliant in everything, a pretty little ragdoll, here to please, wanting to please him, until the moment he reaches for body wash.

"Can I use your soap?" she confesses the desire, lets it bubble to her lips before she can help herself.

Red freezes, stilling on the miniature bottle he'd intended.

"I mean," Lizzie pauses, gathers her words. Slipping into this role verbally is so much more difficult for her than the sensation falling across her skin like gravity. She tries. "May I please use the same kind you use? That's weird, I know, but I want— I want to—

"You want to me to scent you," he pronounces as if he's saying the sky is blue. "There's nothing to be ashamed of, Lizzie. It's a natural, uncontrollable response; as hard to psychologically quell as the physical response of your body readying itself for my cock and knot."

He nods strongly, so sure of himself, of this, and Lizzie is taken back to days ago. Was it just days ago?

_That's what love is: being powerless. _

Red says nothing more, clears his throat deeply, and moves to his feet. Lizzie's cheeks flame. Moments later, he returns from the shower stall across the room wielding a black, glass tube. The amount he squeezes out onto his hand is minimal, but the heady way it fills the air makes her toes curl, her pupils blow out. It smells like lust. Raymond Reddington smells like lust and a hint of cinnamon spice, and she'd never noticed before now; now, when she smells like it, too.

/

They eat in his room, in bed.

It wasn't take-out at the door after all, but fresh fruit and expensive cheese and prime deli meat. Dembe must have stopped by the closest grocery store. Red is full of surprises, but explains as precisely as he can. "You need to be fueling your body properly, Elizabeth. My Omega is never in anything but mind-numbing pleasure. Never exhaustion. Understood?"

The Omega loves it when he calls her Elizabeth.

Lizzie shivers and watches Red adjust the thermostat by the door, ever mindful of his request. She methodically opens her mouth, inserts a piece of fruit, and makes herself chew, swallow. She cannot taste. She cannot think. The wave of her hair is still damp at the ends. He'd helped her to dry off, patted her down softly with large, overly fluffy towels that smelt fresh and pleasant. He did not give her something to cover herself with. Lizzie did not ask for anything.

Believe it or not, the nudity is not what's making her uncomfortable.

(_He is her Alpha_, she repeats to herself. _There is not a part of herself he will not own.)_

She fleetingly panics for the bed sheets beneath her, though. High thread count, expensive. These blankets cost at least two of her paychecks in full.

Despite him having dried her off, minutes later she's in the same position she was before the bath, the same yearning.

Fresh slick, dripping anew. It slides between her inner thighs messily.

Lizzie makes a noise of discontent, shifting her body. She's so frustrated. Days ago, before all of this, Lizzie imagined that if they ever fell into bed it would be something of an enigma, torrid but sensual, mutual limbs entwining, give and take. Normal sex. Absolutely, every day, fucking human, good, normal intercourse. Not this. These thoughts are random, but true, and Lizzie recognizes that the food must be what's clearing her mind, although the edges of her sight are still hazed with crimson-tinted passion, with Omega need.

Red, still fully clothed, sinks back down onto the mattress and pops a piece of sharp cheddar in his mouth.

The silence is unnerving, brim full of all the unspoken understandings of this moment, and how they've reached it. Unspoken knowing of just what will occur after— until he notices her discomfort, the way she's tousling her legs. Lightning fast, he juts a hand out and stops her, palm sinking into the flesh of her quad. "Don't worry, Lizzie."

Lizzie whimpers at how close his hand is to where he needs it, miserably attempting to focus on what he's saying.

The sheets, though. _The sheets._

"Shh," he soothes. "They can be washed. Trust me. They have been doused in liberal amount of my body fluid and been clean again since I attained them. They are not priceless, sweetheart."

Then, what he says actually hits her. And Lizzie goes taut, getting wetter, if possible, and Jesus Christ, the way his eyes go from bright and clear to dark, so dark an emerald they could be black in different light, and everybody could be darkness if only in a certain light, and oh, _oh. _Red's nostrils flare as the scent of her greets him.

His fingers, still on her thigh, drag lazily.

Lizzie allows her gaze to linger, as his did on her body, on the thick, obtrusive line of his erection against his slacks. The way it strains against the zipper, huge and it must be painful, it must—

Lizzie's dainty little digits move for it, even as he stops her with an iron fist around her wrist. Lizzie gasps.

"Red, I have to—

"Lizzie, finish your meal."

She still has two strawberries left in her bowl.

"I have to taste you," Lizzie pleads, trying to reach with her other hand. Red glares, bares his teeth.

It's not until he growls that Lizzie understands, and stops her misplaced determination, relaxing her weight. He releases her wrist, where it falls, limp, to her lap. Tears spring to her eyes, unbidden. Red hot shame burns her cheeks, and the Omega, that weak, dismal part of her feels rejected, feels as if he's saying—

"Elizabeth," he pronounces, grabbing her chin sharply. Forcing her to look him in the eye. "Finish your meal, and then I want you to taste my cock. How does that sound, hmm?"

Something in her chest gives way, loosens. Lizzie breathes in deeply. Nods, wipes quickly at the moisture fallen on her cheek until Red stops her, does it himself. Lizzie lets him. She slips into the role so easily, you know. With a motion of her own hand, Lizzie picks up another piece of red fruit.

Red purrs again, and the Omega's throat lumps at the sound.

Relief.

"Good girl," he compliments when she complies. "That's my good girl."

The Alpha's praise makes Lizzie grin widely. Sweet juice at her lips.

/

The shockingly warm, soft flesh of him bobs free, and Lizzie has her right ear pressed to his thigh, inspecting each and every part of him that he'll allow, that she can have. Elizabeth will take whatever she can, and yes, yes he lets her take this. With the bed cleared of their remaining meal, Lizzie wants to make sustainability out of this, here, tracing up and down the rigid length of him with a single finger before leaning in and taking the head in her mouth outright.

She feels the need ebb when the taste of him sparks her taste buds, setting off fires, burning down all the forest and the houses within, and Lizzie finds herself taking in as much as she can, needing, needing to consume—

But his hands fist in her soft, curled hair, stopping her from taking him any further.

Lizzie looks up at Red beneath a fringe of eyelashes, her mouth full of his achingly thick length.

He's at least nine inches long, Lizzie realizes. At the very, very least.

"Don't choke," he warns with an Alpha's conviction, even as her eyes water and she breathes through her nose. Lizzie pulls off of him with a smack, fresh moisture beading to the slit of his cock still slick with her saliva. Her intakes of air staggering, and Lizzie wraps her hand around it and squeezes, and thinks, very quietly, all to herself, that if he would have let her, she would have deep throated him until he came in her mouth, and the trace of him would be inside her, inside, and—

But then Lizzie realizes, and she stops abruptly.

Shivers at the thought, legs falling open: the world between them glistening in the light of the lamp.

In the next moment, Red has moved away, off the bed, his cock standing as he shimmies his slacks down his legs, down, gone. Toes off his socks. The Alpha watches her with every ounce of raw conviction before stopping his movements, beckoning her with a single finger. She moves from the bed to stand in front of him because he tells her to. She comes because he asks her to.

(_She would_, she thinks. All it would take is a simple word, and she'd orgasm over, and over, and over, possibly until she passed out.)

"Lizzie," he stops her in front of him, pulling her by the shoulders so that he can tucks all of her wayward bangs behind her ears. He strokes at her jaw, soft, lovely. He touches her like she's gold. "You need to listen to me very carefully, hmm?"

Almost in a trance, she hums back.

Truth be told, upon later recollection, she _doesn't _listen carefully.

In fact, all she really catches is that since this is her first heat, he doesn't think she'll get pregnant.

She remembers, distinctly, him asking if she'll agree to trusting him about blood work, and taking a pregnancy prevention pill once she's finished with her estrus. Easy. Clean. Cut. Towards the end of his talking, Lizzie had felt a wave of boredom, an ebb in her stomach spurring desire, and slid her petite palm around the _uncut_ erection, memorizing every response on his face to her playing, even as his mouth pressed to a firm line and he accused her of not listening. "I am listening, Red. Of course I am."

(But she wasn't. She hadn't been, not really. Red had been explaining to her exactly what was getting ready to transpire, and she hadn't caught any of it. He tries to prepare her. He tries, but she doesn't listen. And he'll never forgive himself for this, after.)

/

He snarls when she reaches for the buttons of his shirt.

Lizzie flinches back, wary.

Stomach dropping out all together at the menace in his eyes, until they shift to pain, to sadness, and Lizzie tilts her head and the Omega questions with her own eyes until he tells her, oh so kindly, "Lizzie, lie down on the mattress and rest your hands beside your head."

Once she's in position, he rests the weight of himself over her, entwining their fingers like lovers.

Her nipples strain against expensive fabric, and his hardness coats in the moisture, but the component to the state is far from sexual when they meet one another's eyes, and even if she's still needy, this, this is the way Lizzie had expected their first time, in some way. This is where they are, how they are, the first time he kisses her on the mouth.

Their first kiss is so sweet it hurts.

Classic, but new. Nomadic points of view, his tongue delving into her mouth, deep, and Lizzie moans at his tongue's dance and spreads her legs as far as she can, bucks and lets his erection slide hotly over her clit, between her lips, and—

And they kiss, and kiss, and by the time they break the kiss, he's inside of her.

/

When he bottoms out, Lizzie hisses between her teeth at the stretching, but when he pulls out to let her adjust a bit, she whines, crazed, thrashing her head and coughing out a begging that sounds foreign even to her own ears. "Please, oh, don't stop, don't stop, don't stop, don't—

"Hush," he amends, pressing a kiss to her mouth and bottoming out again, helping her hoist one legs around his clothed waist so that he can find the angle within her that makes her—

Lizzie jerks up off the mattress like she's possessed, mouth falling open in a way that makes it look like it's almost unhinged, and she says, "oh," and he knows he's found it. Yes, that's it. That, there. He pants against her breastbone, driving his hips slow and steady even as she tries to encourage a faster pace because he knows this can only go on so long, and he plans to make it last while he can, plans to make sure he's wrung pleasure from every pore before—

Her release is startlingly abrupt, for all intents and purposes. He knows she must have been close to the edge for so long, possibly even in the bath tub, maybe before, on the floor, because Lizzie clenches her eyes shut for a second too long before her cries go high pitched and she begins to shake, thighs trembling, and her nails dig into the fabric at his forearms before she convulses harshly around his cock. Lizzie spasms, and he can feel the gush between her legs, and he thinks she's prepared, so he allows himself to embrace the threshold that biology demands.

With a hoarse shout in his own deep timbre, Red proceeds to bury his mouth over the purpling spot he had marked earlier on Lizzie's neck before sighing, long and deep. His cock begins to thicken and he continues to thrust, dragging them shallower as the seconds go by, mindful of the way Lizzie still hums in pleasure, until, until—

Until Lizzie goes utterly still.

The sound she was making broken in half, dissipated. She is silent, and her big blue eyes morph from the haze of pleasure to wide, impossibly open. Frozen. Shocked.

Her limbs go lax and he recognizes the response in her, attuned and at attention in the sudden span of time, his own eyes watching and scrutinizing, trying to fight the urge to rut, until Lizzie parts her mouth and releases a long, spine-straightening _whimper. _Red realizes. Red goes pale in horror, reaches a shaking hand up to brush the hair away from her face, try and garner her attention. It's no use.

In the next moment, Lizzie's trying to get away.

Scrambling, arms and legs flailing, hyperventilating from the straining, but he knows that if she tries to pull herself off of him she could make herself bleed, could do serious damage, so then Red does something that he hates himself for, that he'll never really forgive himself for:

He uses his weight, his position, to force her still.

"_Please, let me go," _she gasps, and with a great shudder, begins to cry beneath him. _"Red, it hurts. Red. Red, please! Let me up! Please, it's too much, it—_

The Alpha in him responds to the distress in a primal way, and his eyes are immediately hard and summoning. "Elizabeth, _look at me." _

Her eyes are unfocused, but the wildness in them tames, even as she still whimpers, salty tears still leaking past her lips, wetting her face.

"Lizzie," he goes, gently this time. He releases the weight of his torso to stroke her cheek, to kiss her forehead and purr to soothe her. "Lizzie, please. Listen to me, sweetheart."

She makes a noise that tells him he has at least a fraction of her attention. He closes his eyes, hating himself. Wanting to hurt himself for hurting her. He's hurt her. He's hurting her. But—

"I can't move," he tells her, agonized and weak. His own muscles tremble because of the strain of maintaining this particular position for so long. His cock pulses with every spurt of semen, and even the idea of plugging her, of filling her and holding her there, isn't the sexual one he's always intended it to be; the one nature predicts. For this harbinger moment, he's disgusted with himself, with the make. With the imperative.

"I thought you understood," he frets, pressing a careful kiss to her forehead, to her cheek, to her mouth.

Lizzie sniffs grossly, nodding against his mouth. She feels so silly, but—

"This is what a knot feels like," Lizzie observes, numb. Her nose is the color of a sick toddler's. "I do understand, I just…I wasn't expecting—

She breaks off, a new wave of tears falling over her cheeks. She clenches her arms around Red, her Alpha, oh, her _Alpha, _and yes, she is an _Omega. _"I wasn't expecting it to hurt," Lizzie admits pathetically. "Red, _it hurts."_

He cries out for her, with her. The sound he makes is one of the utmost sorrow, and it's funny, because there are skeptics out there that say that Alphas and Omegas don't feel things in a synchronized manner, that the science behind "sharing" is little more than a chemical composition set off by a chain of physical events, but this, this is the moment when Lizzie feels him adjust so that instead of holding her down he is simply shielding her, palms up under her shoulder blades, cradling her to his chest and crying into her neck as she clutches at him and grits her teeth against the sharp knife that hurts worse than losing her virginity ever did, and she realizes. She really realizes how much she needs him.

More than physical.

More than chemical.

Soul-deep kind of loving. Soul-deep kind of truth.

"I'm so sorry," he tells her, over, and over, and over again. After some time, Lizzie shifts enough that she can take his mouth instead of his guilt, give him something rather than take. She realizes, after some time, that she appreciates his weight on top of her like this, that it isn't too much or overbearing.

The Omega likes the way it feels as if he's protecting her from the rest of the world.

Lizzie, on the other hand, likes the way it feels like they're hiding in the darkness. Together.

Only their hearts to keep the time and the secrets buried within them.

/

Fifteen minutes pass.

Eventually, the pain wanes, and they fall into an easy, peaceful quiet. Still locked together. Still utterly spent. But when it does, he rocks them both into a different position before she can suck air between her teeth in apprehension. Suddenly, she's upon his chest, his hand splayed upon her naked lower back. Thumb going in circles. Slowly, like shifting through water, Lizzie moves and tests her nerve endings until she is braced into a sitting position. It's a difficult maneuver, but when she gets there, she releases a gust of breath, smiling a little.

The Alpha's big hands are strong against her where they fall to her hips, steady her.

She looks down at him and thinks, _be my king and I your queen. _

The knot within her doesn't feel as if it's splitting her entire body in half anymore, but then sensation of it tugging, filling her inside to the brink, is one of heightened awareness. Lizzie tilts her hips a little, and finds a moan work its way up her throat. Red stares at her. Narrows his eyes. One side of his lips upturns.

Quietly, without any use of words, Red sensually slides his finger from their melded place at her hipbone to her pelvis, and down, down, to the hair, to where they are connected.

Her clit is swollen and aching against his fingers.

/

Raymond Reddington finds beauty in this:

Lizzie, her hands at her breasts, pinching at her nipples. On his lap, his cock within her still. Back arched, mouth open. Before _him,_ and only _him_.

His Omega. His Lizzie.

His.

/

He slides from her in a gush of fluid, and when she falls to the side he is assuredly there, settling her beside him, coaxing her to turn into his chest. The Omega whines, not in pain, but annoyance, and before Lizzie even realizes what she's doing, her fingers are at the apex between her thighs, sloshing the liquid that's leaked there back inside, back within her, and once she does realize what she's doing she goes shocked and still for the second time this night.

Red nudges her with his nose, lays a wet kiss against the corner of her pink lips. The Alpha heaves a sigh of thoughtfulness. "The function of estrus, Lizzie: to breed. You're alright. You're just doing what biology is telling you to do. Maybe one day you'll follow through with it."

Regardless, Lizzie wipes her sticky fingers on the bed sheet, ruined, as she expected, wrinkling her nose. "Now that it's one of my options, I guess I might."

A beat.

Lizzie's eyes go incredibly soft, the lightest blue they'll ever be. She pets on him like he pets on her, her fingers tangling up in his shirt, clenching and unclenching. "Maybe one day you'll help me follow through with it."

She drops the words so casually, as if discussing the idea of making babies together is as simple a subject as the weather.

It's not that he doesn't share the sentiment. She is his Omega. She is his Lizzie. He would like nothing more in the world than to see her beautiful and pregnant with his child. Wants so much to be able to give her that joy, to share that joy with her. A small girl with his knack for trouble and Lizzie's everything else. A boy with a laugh that could reach masses.

Lizzie's hands entangle within a shirt he never took off for a reason.

He wishes, with all his might, that things were so simple.

"Maybe."

/

.

.

.

Fin.


End file.
